Mars replanning group to deliver report this month

By Jeff Foust on 2012 August 2 at 11:29 pm ET

A group established by NASA earlier this year to develop options for future exploration of the Red Planet will deliver its final report to NASA by month’s end, the head of NASA’s overall Mars exploration program said Thursday.

Doug McCuistion, director of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program, said at a press conference at JPL that the Mars Program Planning Group would deliver a final report to NASA in “viewgraph” form this month, after which it will be released to the public. “We are putting together a schedule for when we go public with report. It will be a public report,” he said. That release will also be coordinated with briefings of people at the White House, on Capitol Hill, and in the Mars science community, he said.

The group, established earlier this year by NASA in response to a decision by the Obama Administration to terminate NASA participation in ESA’s ExoMars program, has been evaluating options for missions in the 2018 and 2020 launch opportunities. One challenge has been the constrained budgets in the current projections by the administration. “The budget in ’18 is thin,” McCuistion said. “It probably can’t support a rover or a lander. However, a rover is the next logical step after MSL,” a reference to the Mars Science Laboratory mission arriving at Mars Sunday night. On the other hand, he said an orbiter could help maintain the communications infrastructure around Mars needed to provide detailed telemetry for future lander/rover missions during their critical entry, descent, and landing phases.

A presentation by the group to the NASA Advisory Council last month offers some additional insights into what the group is considering. “Current Rover options not credible for 2018 within budget constraints,” the presentation notes (page 7). On the next slide, it shows a pathway of mission options, with a recommendation to pursue one titled “Seeking Signs of Ancient Life”, which does call for some kind of sample return mission. The presentation includes several concepts for future rover mission, derived from both MSL and the earlier Mars Exploration Rovers (better known as Spirit and Opportunity) to cache samples and perform other science in advance of future sample return missions.

Once NASA gets the group’s report, McCuistion said, it will make decisions about future missions. “When we are public with that will depend on how it takes us to come up with that as well as the discussion internally, within the agency and within the Executive Office of the President, since it will all fit into 2014 budget process.”

44 comments to Mars replanning group to deliver report this month

It will be interesting to see what comes out…personally I think that the Mars people have with MSL even if it works, finally done what the space station did for HSF…priced it out of reach.

With MSL what the folks running the Mars program did was forego an evolution of the MER systems which were affordable…had they moved to a production line of MER with some updates along the way…they would have had a serious supply of landers (more actually if the Falcon 9 and Falcon heavy work).

on the money expected they could have a MER class rover…but …

In the end unless something proves very quickly that the Martian dirt could actually support life…we ought to rethink an obsession with a sample return.

We are likely two decades from any real ability to send humans to mars…the question needs to be answered “why”? RGO

… the Mars people have with MSL even if it works, finally done what the space station did for HSF…priced it out of reach.

A very good point, alas.

We are likely two decades from any real ability to send humans to mars…

More like ten to twenty decades, I’m afraid. Our Martian pilgrims would end up permanently disabled, at best — not a politically viable outcome for heroes who are supposed to have “the right stuff” — and learn far less than machines costing more than two orders of magnitude less could learn.

the question needs to be answered “why”?

Even for the vastly more productive unmanned machines that’s a good question.

Sending a near identical MSL rover is an obvious next step. It should be a national policy to keep a permanent multiple rover presence on the red planet. For goodness sake, will we ever plan programs instead of individual missions? We should be able to send a second MSL to Mars at a fraction of the cost of the first. What’s the problem? Also, we need a TDRS like capability for Mars. Just modest comsats in useful orbits. No cameras, sensors, or science teams of university propeller heads.

…the question needs to be answered “why”? RGO
For someone who spends a lot of time on space blogs, you sure are a major skeptic, Oler.
The simple answer is also the most basic; Because societies that explore expand and thrive, those that don’t wither and die.

Robert G. Oler wrote
We are likely two decades from any real ability to send humans to mars…the question needs to be answered “why”?

Googaw wroteMore like ten to twenty decades, I’m afraid. Our Martian pilgrims would end up permanently disabled, at best — not a politically viable outcome for heroes who are supposed to have “the right stuff” — and learn far less than machines costing more than two orders of magnitude less could learn.

I hope both of you have a good view with your heads in the sand. And, if by chance you look up you will see a civiliation of restrictions and limitations and very no future.

Hopefully, future space settlement and exploration will be more than a bunch of machines

MSL isn’t a mission looking for life. Let us not be confused about that, the likelihood that it can detect life when it has no dedicated experiments to do so is minute.

It is a mission to look for the remaining conditions for extant or extinct life (habitability). We have found energy sources (UV, geothermal, perchlorates) and water (ice, likely brines). Now we are looking for organics and so possible trace fossils.

If MSL is successful it may lead to sample return. To study non-trace fossils on Earth you need paleontologists to survey many formations before they find fossil bearing ones.

To study microbes on Earth, you need microbiologists to attempt many growth experiments before they learn how to grow a minute part of all species. (I think they manage a few percent.)

This is the reason Curiosity has no dedicated experiment for detecting life. It is a complex process for the generic case of microbial species, at least here on Earth.

So unless we are really lucky I suspect the sample return program will need decades or centuries for many tens of sample returns, at the current economically constrained mission rate.

I don’t think you can exploit space by piecemeal efforts.

However, research pays off on average, so to explore habitability to constrain astrobiology can be supported.

If you wish, you can tie manned exploration & exploitation to that, since it would hasten the research program. Aside from teleoperated machines, manned research cuts costs. (I think I have linked it here before, but it’s a paper on arxiv and I think, peer reviewed published elsewhere, that assess the costs.)

Manned interplanetary missions is a sustainable effort as long as artificial intelligence systems can’t take over and as long as you stay focused on ROI instead of political pork. For whatever historical reason, the US system is set up as a way to, apparently, maximize pork while, seemingly at least, minimize visibility of corruption.

Exploitation is quite another thing, but I assume you can exploit exploration (provide crafts, waystations and fuel from asteroid water, say) or tourism to start with.

The Vikings end run on life was a failure. (In that the experiment was abandoned, it conflicted with the “no organics” find.)

However, there is another end run that should be tried before doing extensive sample return. For theoretical reasons one can expect that RNA is chemically selected, since we use it. And recently research into early Earth anoxic conditions seems to start to test that experimentally, RNA is much more catalytically versatile with no oxygen and plenty of iron.

Hence one should look for nucleotides and their heteromers early. Alas, they don’t fossilize well, so it is only a test of extant life. But relatively cheap local testing of samples and specifically bore samples should be part of any martian space policy IMO.

We are likely two decades from any real ability to send humans to mars…the question needs to be answered “why”? RGO

One of the pillars of left wing political philosophy is the Malthusian notion that there are too many people consuming too many resources and on too land for ‘Mother Earth’ to support. Expansion of human endeavor to Mars to relieve the pressure should seem natural. My own motivations revolve around materials and the acquisition of land. A second westward expansion if you will.

…the question needs to be answered “why”? RGO
For someone who spends a lot of time on space blogs, you sure are a major skeptic, Oler.
The simple answer is also the most basic; Because societies that explore expand and thrive, those that don’t wither and die.>>

MrEarl. I find things work out a lot better if I am a skeptic…just in space policy 30 years of NASA BS have drove that lesson home hard.

I dont as a matter of discussion disagree with the statement you made about nations or civilizations or societies who explore and those who do not. The problem is that despite years nee decades of people claiming that space exploration in general and human spaceflight in specific…and to this thread a major outlay of cash to do “something” at Mars is what keeps a nation/society/civilization vibrant…there is little evidence of that.

You are trying to bump up on the Turner thesis here…ie the frontier thing…but at best Turner is only correct if the frontiers that are explored change the life, the course of the civilization otherwise they are just wasted funds.

I do agree that space exploration (both in general and specific) can keep a civilization young…but it has to be directed properly.

So to the Mars thing…what happens if the nation spends say 10-20 billion on a sample return…we get some Mars rocks (a small pittance) that really show nothing about life or do much more then the lunar rocks have done, ie tell us about the planet…what is the next goal of Mars exploration? More rocks?

There is somewhere here (as in human spaceflight) a discussion to be had of direction purpose and cause…To build “Curiosity” a lot of money went to one thing whereas a lot of more things could have been had under a different planning scheme…there is a discussion to be had there. RGO

the point of it all is, with this neat plan coming to NASA…what is the point of the plan? As I asked Mr. Earl say we spend billions and decades trying to get a few rocks…and survive the various failures along the way…what happens once we get the rocks?

If there are little bugs in them wow…great then there is some reason for going…but if they are as I suspect deader then a dornnail…well.

We have to answer a fundamental question quickly on Mars…can life exist in the dirt there NOW…if the answer is no…we need to rethink the program period. I dont think MSL is geared to answer that question RGO

For goodness sake, will we ever plan programs instead of individual missions?

For goodness sake, it’s called the Mars Exploration Program (MEP). It’s an ongoing NASA strategic program, as opposed to a collection of disconnected missions. The MPPG is trying to provide an update to that program.

And no, more of the same isn’t at least a scientifically credible option. A TDRS-like system in Mars orbit is a great idea, though what it would serve are pretty much the propeller heads that you seem to denigrate.

Because societies that explore expand and thrive, those that don’t wither and die.

That’s a historical myth. There are many major and successful societies that aren’t known for their efforts in exploration. That of China is a good example. There are many Chinese historical explorers, but the impact of their efforts on the survival of the culture is dubious. From the other direction, efforts in exploration are hardly insurance for cultural survival e.g. Vikings. Myths are fun, but when they try to define policy, you’re screwed.

“The simple answer is also the most basic; Because societies that explore expand and thrive, those that don’t wither and die.”
One of those rare occasions when I agree with Mr. Earl. And if the government doesn’t decide to go about doing it in a practical manner, Musk is determined to do it anyway. However, I would prefer a cooperative effort between NASA, SpaceX, ULA etc. (without NASA attempting the insanity of a shuttle-derived HLV).

amightywind wrote @ August 3rd, 2012 at 11:09 am
“One of the pillars of left wing political philosophy is the Malthusian notion that there are too many people consuming too many resources and on too land for ‘Mother Earth’ to support.”

whoever believes that is as goofy as the people who think that space is another “western expansion”…RGO

I’m surprised no one has commented on ‘commercial crew’. Surprise, surprise. The leftists knocked out ATK and kept the rest. An agressive down select of one! Expect congress to be, umm, irritated. The NASA leadership should just shut it down. Anything the decide from here on will be undone after the election.

That is a fundamental weakness of the present NASA Mars program. The map doesn’t go beyond sample return, and if it did it would probably be just that. More rocks. To the extent that the primary question is contemporary or sometime life on Mars, it’s probably going to take more than another rock or two. Perhaps the idea is that by that time, we’ll have lots of human geologists traipsing around on the surface, though they’ll still be traipsing pretty much in one location. If what they’re going is looking for bones, fossils, or something scurrying under a rock, those imaging tasks are likely to be doable robotically, and done a lot better (higher resolution, more pixels, etc.) that way than with human eyes.

The advantage of the question of life on Mars is sort of like the advantage of SETI. The answer can never be “No”. It just gets a lot less exciting as that answer gets more likely.

The advantages of AI systems over organic human for deep space exploration are so profound that I would think NASA would be aggressively funding AI development. if Moore’s Law holds then the crossover point (at which AI capabilities will exceed those of organic humans) will be around 2050. AI may be equally capable of responding to the unexpected and even of experiencing the trill of discovery.

I don’t think we should be distressed. From a philosophical point of view they will be our children whether they are based on carbon or on silicon and steel. When and even whether humans reach the stars will depend not on the technology of spacecraft but on whether we consider our artificial descendants, who will get there, to be human.

“We have to answer a fundamental question quickly on Mars…can life exist in the dirt there NOW…if the answer is no…we need to rethink the program period. I dont think MSL is geared to answer that question RGO”

The trouble is that question isn’t so easy to answer even for Earth. About the only requirement for life on earth seems to be liquid water and you don’t need oceans of it. For instance one of the reason why ice is so slippery is because there is a microscopic film of water on the top (i.e. it isn’t 100% solid) and just that tiny amount of water can support life. As well as the droplets in the air. Even in the worse desserts on earth microbial life has been found(say a few inches below the surface…where the surface comes up as dead).

MSL is looking for the stuff that makes up living things. Actually proving life can be very difficult if you don’t know what you are looking for. i.e. There are organisms on earth that wouldn’t care for Viking’s life test.

Organisms on Earth have very specific nutritional and temperature requirements. For instance on earth bacteria can be Aerobic (requires oxygen to live), Anaerobic (Oxygen will kill them), Facultative anaerobes (will use oxygen if available, but does not need it), Aero tolerant (does not use oxygen, but oxygen does not kill them), microairophiles (require oxygen but too much will kill). Bacteria can use photosyntsis, but in addition to breaking water molecules like plants they also can break hydrogen and hydrogen sulfide. Not to mention chemosynthesis where a they use a chemical to power life (for instance the rust on titanic is caused by bacteria).

As for temperature things life ice worms die if they get much above freezing and the bacteria that grow in the boiling waters of Yellowstone don’t like room temperature (i.e. some of them will die).

In addition bacteria were the only form of life on earth for billions of years. Much longer than complex life has existed so it would be expected that a planet that has life would likely just have bacterial life esp. one without oxygen.

“My own motivations revolve around materials and the acquisition of land. A second westward expansion if you will.”

Which seems to be exactly the same as what you accuse the “left wing” of wanting to do. Sometimes you are so reactive you don’t realize you may have commonalities with others – even within your own fractured political party.

The “Why?” question again, with various historical analogues that simply do not work. But as RGO has actually dared to mention the back-contamination problem without invoking the usual hysterical invective, here goes my own answers:

Number one is to determine the detailed impact history of Mars. As Mars is pretty well geologically dead, data should be preserved there that is no longer available on Earth.

Second, it is clear (to some people at least) that impacts on Mars have released volatiles. We need to know now before more money is spent on manned systems if Mars presents a back contamination problem.

What I want is air bag landing rovers going up Valles Marineris. Standard design, as RGO points out.

I don’t know the weight restraints on air bag landing systems, but I’d like the rovers to have range and stereo HD imagery.

As for Musk, he is determined to do what he has set out to do, and a level playing field and no obstacles are not too much to ask for.

As soon as the impact hazard is handled, I look forward to having fun thinking about Mars again.

RGO, I’m sure your father was proud of you.
We grieve for our selves, not for those who have walked on.

ROFLMAO maybe in your universe, not in ours, especially with no surface data yet returned from Curiosity, let alone the fate known of the $2-plus billion project (as reported at launch) riding on this weekend’s Rube Goldberg-styled landing profile. If it works, great. If it slams into the Martian surface, this project merits termination.

@Robert G. Oler wrote @ August 3rd, 2012 at 2:41 pm

“whoever believes that is as goofy as the people who think that space is another “western expansion”…”

It’s not. It’s as certain an evolutionary step off the planet as it was for ancient protospecies climbing out of the sea slime.

@Torbjörn Larsson, OM wrote @ August 3rd, 2012 at 10:54 am

“MSL isn’t a mission looking for life.”

Then what’s the point. At $2-plus billion it’s a waste of time and resources; space science run amuck again, particularly in an era of massive deficits and debt. When the costs break the $1 billion mark for these fuzzy-goaled, gold-plated planetary probes, proclaiming they’re not ‘looking for life’ is yet another rationale for killing off these big science boondoggles. In an era of increasingly inexpensive, throwaway microelectronics, it’s absurd for the space science community to be wasting billions on one-offs with rising price tags which increasingly look more like ‘make work’ for an elite few at the expense of the many, with a government burdened with the costs that has to borrow 42 cents of every dollar it spends.

“There are many Chinese historical explorers, but the impact of their efforts on the survival of the culture is dubious.
A poor choice of example. While it is true after China finished its last great exploratory phase under Zheng He that the society did not collapse and had continued relative stability for hundreds of years, it turned inward on itself and did not advance technically or scientificly very much. Meanwhile the Europeans took up the scientific, technological and exploratory torch with the Renaissance that led to much greater power, ultimately leading to Chinese subjugation by western powers starting in the late 17th Century.

The Vikings were not a civilization in the true sense of the word as in a governed society with central cities and they did not have a “plan” for expansion (as is the way with expansionist political states). They mainly conducted short term haphazard raids of opportunity when a group of them felt the urge. Anyway, what ended the Viking expansive scurge was settlement in conquered lands leading into agrarian life and conversion to Christianity.

The advantage of the question of life on Mars is sort of like the advantage of SETI. The answer can never be “No”.

Indeed, but is it an advantage if the funders figure this out? Taxpayers and politicians have long since discovered this about about SETI, and thus refuse to fund it. They will soon figure out that astrobiology is the same kind of scam.

Anyway, what ended the Viking expansive scurge was settlement in conquered lands leading into agrarian life and conversion to Christianity.

And, as I noted, the demise of their culture. Their brave voyages didn’t protect it.

I think you’re agreeing with me. The idea that cultures must explore, or at least travel, to survive has little historical justification, though it is a myth that human space advocates blindly cling to. The idea that cultures need to conquer other cultures to survive makes more historical sense. So until we discover cultures on Mars we can conquer and plunder, I’m calling human space advocates on that. I think looking over the hill is always a sensible thing to do, but putting footprints on planets isn’t an efficient way to do that anymore. We’ve got better ways to look over the hill.

Expansion of human endeavor to Mars to relieve the pressure should seem natural.

Heh. Someone should tell Congress that. They don’t seem to know. NASA authorization doesn’t have anything to do with settlement of other worlds. But then again, what seems natural to us is hardly obvious to our elected officials.

“I don’t know the weight restraints on air bag landing systems, but I’d like the rovers to have range and stereo HD imagery.”

The weight restraints are basically the same size as MER. It is kind of the reason why they went with the sky crane. You can’t land anything bigger than MER with airbag(even landing MER, they had to make an big adaption from the airbags used on Pathfinder).

While it is true after China finished its last great exploratory phase under Zheng He that the society did not collapse and had continued relative stability for hundreds of years, it turned inward on itself and did not advance technically or scientificly very much. Meanwhile the Europeans took up the scientific, technological and exploratory torch with the Renaissance that led to much greater power, ultimately leading to Chinese subjugation by western powers starting in the late 17th Century.

That’s historically inaccurate. Though China was “subjugated” by western powers several times in its history, that subjugation was at best in the form of outside control of tangible assets. The culture itself was not subjugated. The chain of imperial dynasties that preserved the culture itself continued uninterrupted. We’re talking about cultural preservation, and “exploration” had nothing to do with it here.

The blossoming of science and technology in a culture is another matter. That blossoming is often associated with grand voyages and exploratory travel. But the former likely enables the latter. That is, the science and technology that is developed by a culture makes it easier for that culture to travel. Doing that exploration doesn’t particularly incentivize or aid science and technology development.

Yes, we’d desperately like to believe that travel is a mandate for a successful culture. It isn’t. Cultures travel because their people are hungry, greedy, or scared. At some level, I suppose human space exploration is about being scared. The MPPG and MEP are about curiosity. Being curious is good, and it is probably an important ingredient for a successful culture. There are many ways to be curious about the world, and a few involve travel.

To those who aren’t scientifically or technologically literate, and who don’t have much of a clue about how to be scientifically or technologically curious, human travel can be spun as a digestible example of curiosity about the world.

I would like to thank everyone for their nice response on the purpose of MSL…those responses have been quite helpful and useful and along with other research I have done I would make a few points to add (hopefully) some light to the discussion.

1. It appears as though the folks who are making “mars” policy these days are completely disconnected from political reality.

There is a story on Space Review of the MSL and I’ve asked some questions there…I guess Dwayne Day had a few entertaining comments… but in the end assuming that the Rover lands well and does some research ABSENT some major “awe shucks discovery” (which one has to view as unlikely given its mission) there seems to be little that would stir the political blood with “wow lets do more”.

What for the most part space politics and policy seems to have evolved to is little groups of experts who feel that their appetite for space should be feed from public funding with their expertise alone the basis for direction. This is why we got a space station that is well lets be honest no where near the usefullness that we should have for 100-200 billion dollars, IT IS MIKE GRIFFINS only claim to fame, Webb seems to rely on this and well MSL is such a program.

I know that these people are well meaning and quite bright; but they seem inept to the notion of how to maintain momenteum for their policies and programs…we are talking about Mars here so I’ll stay there…but what on earth (or on Mars) do the people running the various studies think is going to sustain the political interest (or interest by the people of the nation) in terms of ever expensive programs that they want.

Say somehow we get to a sample return …and we get X to XX lbs of Mars rocks back (or maybe less) and they are quite dead in terms of any real “life” and quite valueless in terms of any real minerals…where does the program go from there?

The Moon effort went well into oblivion. We spent (for other reasons of course) hundreds of billions in today dollars to get to the Moon got some rocks which really on their own analysis had little public “sizzle” and that was it.

Sadly (grin) on this DSCA is well correct his line “When the costs break the $1 billion mark for these fuzzy-goaled, gold-plated planetary probes, proclaiming they’re not ‘looking for life’ is yet another rationale for killing off these big science boondoggles”

he is correct and that assume sthat the probe works. If it makes a 2.5 billion hole well “its dead Jim”.

2.Life on Mars…we probably should be very careful here. From what I have read (someone want to correct me) if there is life on Mars it is probably very very different then life on Earth…because in large measure the conditions that life needs here on earth or mostly in my view absent on Mars…so if it is (evolved or created depending on ones political beliefs) in the many billions of years (or 6000 if you are the religious right wing of the GOP) it is probably very very different then what we are use to dealing with.

The “Oler” theory on life is that if its there it is once you start looking in the correct place…it is “obvious” hence I would imagine that if we could get under some of the ice coatings of a few of Saturn’s moons where their might be oceans…we probably would recognize any life forms we see. The elements of life “here” are at least there whereas on Mars they are not.

3. I hope MSL works and dont know all that much about the decision making that went into its various technologies. but by a simple metric I am not impressed.

Mr Earl in one post noted “you sure are a major skeptic”

I find I stay both alive and prosper in the world longer that way. By a simple metric MSL is a clusterfrack interms of its landing technology….cost.

Part of the equation of engineering is defining the problem and that includes defining the cost of solution. by the cost overruns alone on MSL and in a wide variety of its technologies it is pretty clear…they were not able to define issues.

The “skycrane” (a misnomer actually it works nothing like the helicopter with that same name)…method strikes me as someone looking for a technological answer to a problem that had other solutions. I finally got someone to admit that its not a prop saver and I suspect that it didnt save much mass in terms of the carring device.

Oh well good luck anyway.

Finally thanks for all the kind comments about my Father and his relationship with me. My Father had a strong mind right up to the end but his body was failing him. He had a faith in his religious beliefs that (I share with some mods) that was unshakable. While I am sad about his passing; I do believe he is in heaven and he wouldnt come back if he could…I loved him a great deal and he loved me. As Adams said ‘who we are is who we were and who we will be is who we are”…thanks again everyone

“.Life on Mars…we probably should be very careful here. From what I have read (someone want to correct me) if there is life on Mars it is probably very very different then life on Earth…because in large measure the conditions that life needs here on earth or mostly in my view absent on Mars…”

Err no. Life if present on Mars would have simply evolved differently. It is thought that the planets Venus, Earth, and Mars had similar conditions billions of years ago when life first started and in the case of Earth it pretty much starts very quickly(i.e. There is evidence of life in the oldest rocks ever found). There is probably a temperature too high for carbon based life(i.e. too hot for carbon carbon bonds to be stable) and a temperature too low (where the chemical reactions of life happened too slowly to keep repairing damage from the environment).Even then it isn’t death as much as it stops growing (i.e. if it warms up again and the cell isn’t too damaged it will start again). The conditions needed to start life are unknown and the world it stated on very different(frankly it would be toxic to us). However once life started can be very adaptable (i.e. Found in glaciers and boiling water, extremely acidic and basic conditions, with and without oxygen, dependant on light or not dependant on light). On Earth bacteria can grow at temps as low as -15C but again need liquid water (brine). Here is a list of just how extreme life can get on earth:

Anyway the one of the biggest challenge to life on mars would probably be the temperature swings more than anything else. Life on earth tends to like stable conditions. The radiation could be blocked by being underground or being very tolerant of it. Here is another article of interest:

Well this is really a red letter day. RGO and DCSCA agreeing on something with which, to my disbelief, I also find myself in agreeance. MSL like JWST and SLS are simply too expensive to sustain into any future program. JWST virtually demolished follow-on missions and MSL has quite likely done the same. SLS, well enough said about that porkfest but it too will wither and die, leaving NASA again adrift and commercial the only saviour for HSF.
Speaking of which, congrat’s to Boeing, SpaceX and SN. Well done and good luck for the future. Needless to say I am not an ATK fan. Now if only Congress will fully fund CCiCAP, but, I’m not holding my breath. I expect a reduction in line with previous efforts of around 50%.

Err no. Life if present on Mars would have simply evolved differently”

OK so still in question seeking mode here. If life had evolved differently on Mars and adapted to the changes in the planet as it evolved differently from earth might not it 1) evolved out of existence (IE as you note the conditions just prove to extreme) or 2) evolved for the changing conditions and in that case be fairly plentiful? IE for what it is Mars is a fairly stable environment (with some temp swings due to the orbit but that is even “constant” mostly (grin)…so shouldnt the life forms be more readily apparent? RGO

MSL like JWST and SLS are simply too expensive to sustain into any future program.

That’s highly simplistic, and I don’t think it’s even obvious what was said. Pay attention.

What MSL will prove, if successful, is the basic architecture needed to support future sample collection and return. My problem is, what do you do after that, if not more sample return?

As to JWST, yes, it means that given that it’s going to take of order $10B of U.S. dollars to develop, loft and use a 6m deployable near infrared telescope, it’ll be a cold day in hell when a 20m version of JWST is launched. But extrapolating that to not “sustain any future program” is nonsense.

The Apollo program was simply too expensive to sustain any more Apollos. It wasn’t to expensive to prevent future human space flight.

@Heinrich Monroe“The culture itself was not subjugated.”
The culture of China was indeed subjugated. Even though the entire country was not physically conquered by the Europeans, the Chinese weren’t just forced to accept a European colonial presence in part of their country. The true subjugation that was forced on them was to admit opium in large amounts throughout China that they did not want because of the massive amount of addiction that occurred in their population. It was the resistance to both the colonial presence and forced opium trade throughout the Chinese mainland that fomented the Boxer Rebellion, a conflict that resulted in the final cementing of European hegemony in China until the Second World War.

If I have not absolutely proven that exploration is necessary for the vitality of a civilization, it can also be said that you have not proven the counterpoint either. A negative argument can not be disproved one way or the other.

And by expansion I don’t necessarily mean conquering other cultures as you imply. Conquest and expansion, though often historically coupled, are not synomymous concepts. An example of expansion without conquest would be the Vikings’ expansion into Iceland and Greenland. The descendants of Vikings in Iceland in particular being a very successful society that exists until this day. Similarly, settling a space habitat or another world would be expansion without conquest.

If I have not absolutely proven that exploration is necessary for the vitality of a civilization, it can also be said that you have not proven the counterpoint either.

Admitting opium constitutes “subjugation”? A trade conflict? That’s a curious way of looking at it. It’s as I said, wherein control of tangible assets was the issue. The structure and precepts of the civilization were unchanged.

The issue was whether exploration unambiguously is needed for survival of a culture. To the extent that neither of us can come up with a rationale for that, I think my case is established.

On earth everyone thinks of life as birds, plants, and other large scale things. However for most of the history of earth single celled bacteria are the only things present. Life starts roughly 3.8 billion years ago. Multicellular life does not appear till 1 billion years ago and simple animals till about 600 million. The land would have looked pretty barren on earth esp. as there is no ozone layer. Bacterial mats is what might be present on land. Here is what some of the earliest life forms on earth look like:

When I mean temperature swings I mean the fact that say in the day it could rise to 65F around the equiater then at night plunge to -100F. Earth doesn’t do that kind of up and down.

It is known that conditions favorable for life existed in the past on mars (Both MER rovers both found environments that would have supported earth microbes). So yes the questions are: Did life ever arise? And if it did, did mars get too extreme for it to survive?

In the case of Earth the evolution of oxygen generating photosynthesis greatly changed our world. The oxygen generated caused the iron (and other minerals) that was dissolved in the waters of the earth to Settle out turning our seas blue (and the cause of many iron ore deposits around the world). It caused the creation of the ozone layer and the very oxygen we breathe. It greatly increased biological activity (Aerobic organisms can generate more energy than anaerobic ones). and allowed the formation of complex life(plants, animals, fungi, ect.). However as I mentioned earlier not all photosynthesis generates oxygen and not all autotrophic organisms (organisms that create their own food) need light to do it. However mars might not have gone that way in terms of having oxygen generating photosynthetic organisms become very dominate or if it did then conditions might have goten too extreme for them.

“Admitting opium constitutes “subjugation”? A trade conflict?”
Yes, it does, since the Chinese were forced to the point where they had no choice but to submit to the opium trade even though they fervently did not want it. That is the very definition of “subjugation”. From Merriam-Webster’s dictionary:
“Subjugate: to make submissive : subdue ”

You and I are talking at cross-purposes. You are purposely misconstruing what I am saying. Keep up the babbling. You have “established” nothing. Bye.

“For goodness sake, will we ever plan programs instead of individual missions? We should be able to send a second MSL to Mars at a fraction of the cost of the first. What’s the problem?”

Because the PI (principle investigator?) is building a legacy craft. They are going to get one shot at a rover in their lifetime … will proposing to use the EXACT same EVERYTHING of a past mission even be considered?

There has to be a totally all new bells and whistles … everything has to be a one off, hand made custom piece. I have seen posts by engineers who have worked with PI’s that if they mention they could use a product “x” off the shelf that was used successfully in the past it was auto rejected.

The stars have aligned. A rare moment of agreement. All the same, let’s hope this thing works tonight, if only to keep the space science kids busy with a new toy and the $2.5 billion wasn’t a total loss.

Even if Curiosity operates for years, the costs have risen beyond an acceptable level for today’s economics. And let your imagination percolate… consider the ‘possibility’ of contamination– by this or some element of the earlier probes both landers and crashers- be it a microbe or two nestled in a parachute fold or a virus sneezed on to an internal component long ago. Who knows if, decades after the Viking landers, some bug that escaped the shake and bake process of sterilization, adapted, morphed and survived to thrive in the shadows there. Mars may already be contaminated by accident, soiling the certainty of discovering ‘life’ in the planetary zone where the swath of parameters exist for life, as we know it, to survive

@Heinrich Monroe wrote @ August 5th, 2012 at 1:56 pm

“What MSL will prove, if successful, is the basic architecture needed to support future sample collection and return.”

=eyeroll= What MSL has ‘proved’ is the costs are rising to a prohibitive point to be sustained.

Anyway, at this point, the place to analyze Martian samples is Mars, not drop a rock in a rocket and fired it back here. Mars isn’t a dead world a la Luna, baked dry full of 4.2 billion year old lunar basalt. It’s a weathered and changed world with a climate and has revealed a history of changes. Risking planetary contamination on Earth w/a Martian sample return at this point is simply absurd and shows just how myopic and self-absorbed space science minds can be.

“The Apollo program was simply too expensive to sustain any more Apollos. It wasn’t to expensive to prevent future human space flight.”

Apollo was finite from its inception and the engineering for Apollo hardware had been stretched about as far as it could go (extended stay LMs, suit and backpacks, etc.) The hardware for the cancelled Apollo 18, 19 and 20 flights was already bought and paid for- it was the ops budgets which were denied and it was a political decision to channel NASA into LEO Apollo applications projects as national budget priorities shifted.

“Err no. Life if present on Mars would have simply evolved differently.”

Maybe, maybe not. The ‘zone of life’ given the parameters for this solar system may have included the red-rocked world for a time, but it was just far enough away to peter out as essentials boiled off. Or who knows, it may be thriving in the dark corners of the rusty muck by the ooles. Or we may have inadvertently already contaminated the place w/our own bugs by accident.

I think Robert is raising some interesting questions here. Apparently the objective of the MSL is to Its assignment:
‘Investigate whether conditions have been favorable
for microbial life and for preserving clues in the rocks about
possible past life.’
So what happens after either the mission finds what it’s looking for or doesn’t? Where’s the path to the next mission? What’s the next mission’s objectives? What’s the program’s overall, long-term objectives? Does it lead to a HSF expedition? A colony? What?
The PI for the MER’s once stated something along the lines that a human being could accomplish in 10 minutes, what it took the MER all year to do. That’s a pretty comprehensive statement.
If each robotic mission to Mars is going to cost over a billion dollars, why are we bothering? Why not simply spend the money in a long term plan to get humans there instead if that knowledge is so important? What are the additional missions going to accomplish in terms of that and why can’t / shouldn’t we just do the long-term thing? I’ve got a pretty good idea of why we can’t but anyway, anyone?

So Curiosity is on Mars. Everything worked. (Although relay sats have set, as well as the Earth, so I guess we won’t know more for a few hours.) Looking at mission control now, where there is cheering, laughing, hugging, joyful crying, and jaws hanging wide open. The bottom line is, what MSL has proved so far is … damn, we’re good. How long has it been since human space flight made us feel that way? As Charlie said, Americans are going to go out in the morning with their chests pumped out. He’s right.

By the way, it’s instructive. We’re all overwhelmed not by the distance we’ve gone, or by a rock we’ve arrived at that we’ve never been to before. We’ve gone farther, and landed on this rock before. Our pride is in our technological expertise and sophistication that got us there this time. It was hard. It’s about having the intelligence to make the intelligence that this rover had with it. It’s about putting our smarts in a place where it’s really, really hard for us to go. We’ve truly dared great things, and came out on top.

Rubbish. The engineering was splendid. Which is why everyone was cheering.. Whether the $2.5 billion expense is justified by the scneice returned remains to be seen.But a two year mission, on paper, means the science community has to justify the expense by delivering $1billion/yr worth of science. Good luck with that ROI brief at the next few deficit-driven budget hearings.

“Our pride is in our technological expertise and sophistication that got us there this time.”

In other words, you’re pitching the NASA baloney that’ it doesn’t matter what is cost as long as the mission was a success.” That doesn’t fly anymore in the era of massive deficits.